ZephIR – RERL approved for measurements in the wind industry

The Renewable Energy Research Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst (UMass) has successfully prepared and released an Assessment Report on Natural Power’s ZephIR® laser anemometer which is based on LiDAR technology. UMass has undertaken a data validation experiment which finds that the system achieves correlation of 0.98 up to the tested height of 118m in comparison to traditional cup anemometers.

In addition, ZephIR® was shown to perform strongly in a comprehensive uncertainty analysis with approximately 50% less overall wind speed measurement error to that of the in-situ cup anemometer. Based on a total of six months wind resource assessment, UMass reported that the system is acceptable for use in wind resource assessment applications.

Highlighted in the report, UMass believes that:

“the resource assessment portion of any wind energy project development process could be improved and streamlined by the substitution of LiDAR-based measurement in place of cup anemometers.

The most important benefit associated with lidar wind resource assessment is that the LiDAR is capable of measuring wind speeds at the hub height of a modern wind turbine. When hub height data are available for analysis, access to financial capital for wind project development becomes less restrictive because wind shear extrapolation is one of the most detrimental sources of measurement uncertainty in a given wind resource assessment campaign”.

It is for this reason that ZephIR® has now been approved to be added to the Renewable Energy Research Laboratory (RERL) suite of wind speed measurement devices.

On the release of this report Ian Locker of Natural Power commented “we are pleased to see the positive experience UMass has had with ZephIR® which is widely reflected by the other 50+ systems currently deployed with Customers globally. These systems are being used for a variety of applications from initial site assessment through to permanent wind farm anemometry, across a number of countries worldwide including Canada, the US, Greece, Spain, France, New Zealand, Croatia, Bosnia and the UK”.